Toronto’s overdose problem hasn’t reached the terrifying heights of Vancouver, where 101 people died from fentanyl-linked overdoses in the first four months of this year alone, and 935 people died in the west coast province from opioid overdoses last year. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t bad.

“My own friends have died. My own co-workers have died,” said Zoe Dodd, who works in harm reduction at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, just across the river from Moss Park. “It’s devastating.”

Just some numbers ... if these numbers follow the trend, these are likely to higher now than in the recent past.

I wondered about TC's point -- how many alcoholics died in the same time in the same jurisdictions? So I tried to look it up, with not much success. First of all, it's hard to get numbers for the same jurisdictions whose fatalities are published. Secondly, The problem is that drinkers are often also drug abusers.

Quote:

Alcohol and Drug Presence in Fatal Motor Vehicle Crashes

Crashes involving alcohol and/or drugs are the leading criminal cause of death in Canada. On average, approximately 4 people are killed each day in crashes involving alcohol and/or drugs. In 2012, there were 2,546 crash deaths. Of those, 1,497 deaths, or 58.8%, involved drivers who had some alcohol and/or drug presence in their systems.

476 deaths, or 18.7%, occurred in crashes involving drivers with a positive alcohol reading.
614 deaths, or 24.1%, occurred in crashes involving drivers with a positive drug reading. Cannabis was the drug most frequently found.
407 deaths, or 16%, occurred in crashes involving drivers with positive readings for both alcohol and drugs.
Please note that these statistics document the presence of alcohol and/or drugs and do not reflect impairment levels. The statistics reflect the growing rate of drug presence in drivers involved in fatal crashes. In fact, drugs are now present more often than alcohol in drivers involved in fatal crashes. For more information, including provincial breakdowns of the above statistics and information on the data sources, please see: Total Crash Deaths Involving Alcohol and/or Drugs in Canada, by Jurisdiction, 2012.
http://madd.ca/pages/impaired-.....tatistics/

Drugs were more prevalent in drivers who were included in this study by a significant margin -- around 50% greater than the alcohol related crashes. There were almost as many people who had used both drugs and booze as there were who used alcohol alone. In total, alcohol alone was present in a 19% of crashes, but either drugs alone, or drugs and alcohol were present in 40% of the crashes. More than twice as many.

I am not talking, or promoting, or justifying drug testing. I am talking about the scale of the opioid addiction problem in North America.

And surely these stats illustrate that. Sure, cannabinoids take a month to clear the body, while alcohol takes hours.

These stats are taken from really serious accidents. Not every accident results in the drivers being given blood tests at the scene. Discount a proportion of those test results, the pattern still holds that drugs are probably as bad as alcohol as far as driving is concerned. Which, to me, says that they are in much broader use than most people realize.

Frankly, I have seen addicts hitting the walls, and I don't think most of them would even try to drive in that state. But all it takes is a little slower with the reflexes at the wrong time.

My point is precisely about the wide use of these drugs. It isn't something only deviants do. I am really looking at the failure of policy, and I am not trying to pin that failure on any particular party. It's been going on since the Sixties, but with worse and worse drugs. I am simply drawing attention to the failure of these policies.

People like you, TC, minimize the consequences because they use weed, perhaps, but the chemical drugs are drugs on a far more serious level. If your teeth start falling out after a year of using a drug, maybe it's an indication. The worst you can say about pot is that it makes you pudgy and passive -- but what's wrong with that, after a hard day at the office? Opioids aren't like that. My impression is that these chemical drugs change the person, so that they become useless for work and become mooches and thieves, worried only about their next fix.

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